Umbilical cord blood banking efforts have increased dramatically in the past two decades in response to increasing demand for\r\nalternative sources of blood stem cells to support patients requiring hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Transplant centres have\r\naccumulated increasing expertise in their understanding of umbilical cord blood characteristics that are associated with improved\r\noutcome following transplantation. These characteristics and factors can assist transplant centres in selecting cord blood units from\r\nthe worldwide inventory of banked units. Umbilical cord blood banks, therefore, need to remain agile in adjusting the inventory\r\nof the banks to address shifts or changes in the needs of transplant centres. Public umbilical cord blood banks face the challenge of\r\nbuilding inventory while managing limited resources and are faced with decisions regarding which units can be stored and which\r\nunits that have been collected should be discarded or used for other endeavours such as research. To this end, we sought to review\r\nparameters influencing the decision to bank a collected cord blood unit. In this paper, we will address parameters associated with\r\ngraft potency and address other factors that guide the decision to bank collected units.
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